vancouver family photographer | childhood unplugged: march

Tuesday, March 1st, 2016

growing up, we were a road tripping kind of family.  pack the lunches, stockpile the books, cram three little girl bodies in the backseat of the tan (it was actually more skin coloured) corolla, roll down the windows and hit the road.  but make sure you went to the bathroom before strapping in because there was no stopping until we reached our destination and if you had to go, you were going on the side of the road.  and i loved it.  it was all about getting to where we were going and negotiating how long little sister was allowed to lean on each big sister while we were getting there.

so when i got married, i had the same mindset.  get there.  but now i had this guy that wanted to stop…to trade drivers (“what? my dad always drove!  and he had back problems”), to go pee (“you’re a dude, going on the side of the road is SO easy for you”) and to – brace yourself – get fast food (“so you’re too good for the soggy peanut butter and honey sandwich i made you four hours ago?”).  it was pure chaos.  add children.  i was so confused.

6 years ago, our lives took a turn that we didn’t expect.  we didn’t have any plans/jobs for the foreseeable future and we felt a little lost.  in a moment of clarity (or a complete lack of judgement), we took out our savings, rented a motorhome packed up our three preschoolers and drove across the country.  it is one of those crazy decisions that i am forever grateful to have made.  we bonded as a family, we saw places you would NEVER travel to as a final destination (read most of nebraska), we connected with so many old friends and made new ones (the motorhome culture is alive and well, folks) and we enjoyed the journey.  we saw a “point of interest” marker on the highway and we would pull over.  we drove through detroit in rush hour and received so many expressive hand gestures from our road companions that we had to close the curtains as to protect our childrens’ eyes.  we celebrated thanksgiving with a dear friend’s family (the friend wasn’t even there) in ontario.  we saw a lake, we stopped.  we had an impromptu parkour session on some concrete benches at a rest stop in eastern oregon.

the conclusion we’ve settled on in recent years is that for our family, at least in its current state, we need to enjoy the journey.  so even on our little trip back from portland last month (5 1/2 hours of driving is peanuts), one of our kids announced they were working on a #2, so instead of finding the nearest gas station, we searched out this amazing playground, got coffee and played monster tag).  did we get home an hour later than we would have?  yep.  was it worth it?  absolutely.  (check out my childhood unplugged friends’ posts when you have a moment!)

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